Now I have a machine gun. Ho, ho, ho.

Today we're going to start with a question. What do the above ten movies have in common?

If you want to study the picture and work it out for yourself, you ought to stop reading now.

Like, right now.

Because I'm about to give you the answer.

They are all set (or have key scenes set) during Christmas.

It's relevant, see? It's a time of year where we imagine settling down in front of a roaring fireplace with loved ones and family members to watch a tonne of films on television. But a lot of the films we end up watching are the ones being broadcast on the main TV channels - often characterised by schmaltzy, saccharine, storylines where Santa Claus is a real person and Jingle Bells plays loudly in New York department stores.

So if you're after something a little different, check out this list of movies for alternative Christmas viewing. In all of them we get to see Yuletide without the elves, without Santa Claus and without the mushiness. And in at least one of them Bruce Willis has a machine gun. Ho, ho, ho.

Ten Alternative Christmas Movies

Die Hard (1988)

This is an obvious one. It's action packed, funny, original and has Bruce Willis at his very best. A lot of people watch this film every single year. And they're unlikely to stop any time soon - because you know what they say about old habits.

Gremlins (1984)

Is this a monster flick? Kind of, but there's definitely more than one critter, and although not very big, they're mischievous, nasty, little buggers. Setting it in what appears to be a homebaked American village during the holiday season, worthy of a place in It's a Wonderful Life, just adds to the eventual chaos.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

Great cast, acid sharp script, brilliant characters and a beautifully twisted plot. All of which is centred around a murder at Christmas. Extra fun if you're a Raymond Chandler fan.

Batman Returns (1992)

Back before Chris Nolan rewrote the way superhero movies worked, there were a couple of excellent Batman films made by Tim Burton. The second one was set in a snowy Gotham City, offering a little extra juxtaposition for the creepy bad guys.

The City of Lost Children (1995)
Okay, so although I promised you films that don't feature Santa Claus, he's in this. And not just one. There's a whole room full of them. But being such a darkly inventive science-fiction film you never come too close to any schmaltz.

12 Monkeys (1995)

Bruce Willis again. Does he have a machine gun? You'll have to watch it to find out. But director Terry Gilliam's twisted time-travel film keeps you as confused as the protagonist, slowly revealing the plot, until an ending where you realise all the threads have come together. Look out for the Christmas moments.

Prometheus (2012)

This prequel to the Alien movies is almost entirely set at Christmas. Did you know that? Props to Pete 'The Chef' Cook for pointing it out. Apparently there's a scene where a Christmas tree makes it abundantly clear. I have no recollection whatsoever, and it's not quite good enough for me to want to watch again right now. But the visuals are utterly fabulous so I'm sure I'll get round to it soon.

I Am Legend (2007)
When a virus causes mass panic on the streets of New York City at Christmas, the resultant, mutated inhabitants look less like the vampires of the original book and more like zombies. But it's the change to the ending that really infuriated the fans. That said, it's still a pretty decent movie. Certainly more so than the earlier Charlton Heston adaptation, The Omega Man. And who doesn't love Will Smith?

First Blood (1982)
The Rambo films were pretty silly. A bare chested Sly Stallone obliterating America's enemies with a rocket launcher and a heavy machine gun probably torn from a tank. All pretty silly except the first one, where he's forced to use his black ops survival skills against good ol' yankee cops. An exciting film dealing with PTSD, the dislocation of veterans returning to society, and what it's like to sew yourself back together after a vicious fall. Look out for the decor in the Sheriff's office. It's that which tells us the film takes place at Christmas.

L.A. Confidential (1997)

In one of the opening scenes Russell Crowe's brawny, hard-as-nails detective pulls the Christmas lights off a bad guy's roof. From then on the film takes you deeper and deeper into LA's criminal underworld of the 1950s. And with Guy Pearce's scrawny smarts we are shown a shift of ideologies between the old world and the new. Based on the book by James Elroy.

Jar Jar Abrams

Jar Jar Abrams is a name floating around the internet at the moment. It's what some people are saying they will call J.J. Abrams if his latest film, the much-anticipated seventh episode in the Star Wars saga, doesn't meet their high expectations. But I'm wondering if he could take that monicker and make it mean something else.

To date Jeffrey Jacob Abrams has had a pretty exciting career. From his earlier TV shows like Alias, Fringe and Lost, to Super 8 and his Star Trek reboot movies, his work has brought often niche sci-fi ideas into the mainstream. Ideas like parallel universes, time-hopping, Illuminati-style sects, occult corporate meddling, unexplained phenomena and alien visitations to name just a few.

Sure, there have been mistakes - the ending of Lost was something of a disappointment for me and most of the people I subsequently sought cathartic counselling from, and the second Star Trek film isn't loved by all - but generally he seems to be one of the world's most capable pairs of hands when it comes to putting exciting science fiction on screen. His two Star Trek films currently score 8 and 7.8 on IMDB.com, so I'm probably not the only person who thinks this.

And Star Wars: The Force Awakens could be his best film so far. Certainly there are a lot of people out there hoping it will be. And probably no-one more so than J.J. himself. 

But he sets the bar high, so might it be enough for him to simply make another decent film? What if he wanted to try to improve upon the franchise? What if he wanted to try and fix the prequels? Short of re-releasing them as actually good films, perhaps a way of approaching this would be to take their worst elements and re-introduce them in the next set of films as new and improved versions. Take an awful thing from The Phantom Menace, update it, fix it and sell it back to the fanbase as something we can't live without.

Here's an idea I've been kicking around, that I'd like to share.

In The Empire Strikes Back, after we lost Obi-Wan in the original Star Wars film, the unfolding story needed a new wise man to act as mentor and help with the plot exposition. Into this role stepped Yoda, a several hundred year old oracle of all things Force related. Any issues that the audience needed to know, great, get Yoda to tell Luke. Need a little backstory? Get Yoda to tell Luke. Need to explain to the audience just how bad it will be if Luke lets his anger run free? Get Yoda to do it. Maybe even via a conversation with Obi-Wan's force-ghost.

Not only was Yoda funny and cute and cool and dangerous, but also absolutely necessary to the unfolding plot. 

Now suppose one of the new Star Wars films needs a character to perform a similar role. An older Luke Skywalker would be the obvious choice, but what if he's incapacitated or killed or he's become a Dark Lord of the Sith or he's simply busy elsewhere? The movie makers could invent a new character, someone who wasn't around during the other films, or they could bring in Lando or one of the other unused characters from the original three films. 

But what if J.J. Abrams was able to take something utterly reviled by audiences last time we saw it and turn it around? Something that would link the new Star Wars films not just to the original trilogy, but bring the prequel films back into the fold too. The hatred runs deep, so this next bit may just be too much to stomach, but you and I have got this far together, so I'll take the punt.

Yup, that's right: Jar Jar Binks.

Bear with me. The most annoying, pointless character from the prequels, in Abrams' expert hands could be the Yoda of the next set of films.

For a start he'd be roughly, what, 50 years older? That's a significant timeframe, granting licence for the character to be almost completely rewritten. How might age have mellowed him? He could have changed beyond all recognition, away from the awkward, ungainly character we all hated so much.

When Jar Jar first came lolloping onto the scene with the release of The Phantom Menace in 1999, there were complaints that his vocal style was reminiscent of ebonics and that his floppy ears resembled dreadlocks. This gave rise to the belief that he was based on Jamaican tropes and stereotypes. George Lucas denied this, but the accusations never went away. Therefore if we're looking for a lazy shortcut to describe his accent, Jamaica would be a good place to start. But for this reboot version it won't be the impossibly annoying "meesa sorry sir" accent from the prequels. We'll base his new, older voice, on the veteran rastas that sell reggae on vinyl in various markets dotted around London. The grizzled old guys doing this, who I've met, are the opposite of annoying. They're laid-back and world wise, yet serious and profound. Interesting and intriguing. In other words, quite cool. Could Jar Jar possibly become cool too?

Not what I'd expect to draw for an article about cool things in Star Wars

To still be alive he would need to have survived the entire span of Imperial rule across the galaxy. And with Darth Vader himself leading the hunt for old dissidents (see Star Wars: Purge) any survivors from the Republic days would probably have had to learn a few new survival skills.

Not only that but Jar Jar would have wisdom too. He was right there at nearly all the crucial events that led to the fall of the Old Republic and the rise of the Empire. Right there standing next to some of the most important characters from that time. Mistakes don't get much bigger than the fall of an order and you can learn an awful lot through failure. He was on first names terms with Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala, Bail Organa and even the Emperor, and his best friend grew up to become Darth Vader. I would say Jar Jar Binks could easily be well placed, perhaps even the best placed to take on the role of mentor for the next generation.

So if J.J. Abrams wants to show us more movie magic, why not adopt the insulting monicker in the title of this post and turn it into something positive.

We interrupt this programme

Sci-fi and fantasy are taking a bit of a break this week. A bit of a break, but not a whole one. Because I've gone on holiday somewhere gorgeous, and snuck a few sci-fi books and comics into my luggage.

And one of those books really stands out. Within just a few pages it already looked like a contender for my shortlist of favourite science fiction and fantasy literature. It's Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

It's a dystopian real-world adventure centred on a fantasy quest across a riddle-laden future internet. Does that make sense?

Dystopia in utopia

It mixes cyberpunk elements with existing sci-fi universes and a nostalgic trip through the early days of gaming. It's like Neuromancer and Snow Crash meet Dungeons & Dragons and early 16K home computers in a desperate hunt to discover the ultimate Easter Egg.

Don't worry if you still don't follow me, I'll put my shortlist of favourite sci-fi and fantasy books together in a future post, and try to offer a more comprehensible summary of each. In the meantime, if you think you might be interested then I'd strongly recommend reading Ready Player One - especially if you remember Adventure on the Atari 2600 games console or Pac-Man in the arcades. 

Anyway I can't sit here typing all day, I've got some serious lying by the pool to do.

Normal service will resume shortly.

An interview with Craig Randall, founder of Bitzbox

Hi Craig. You run the website Bitzbox, a supplier of individual plastic parts from Games Workshop kits. What gave you the idea to start up this site?
I was only 19 when I first started Bitzbox and didn’t have much experience behind me apart from working as a self employed web developer for a while. Ironically at this time I wasn’t really into the hobby. My friends stopped playing when we went to college and I still had loads of spare bits lying around from over the years of collecting so I thought I would use my web development skills to create a website to sell them on. At the time there was no one in the UK selling bits online and only Battlewagon Bits in North America.

Forge World's Roboute Guilliman, from Craig's personal collection

I notice you already have parts from the new plastic Horus Heresy game, Betrayal at Calth, up on your site. More and more product is moving into the plastics area. What effects does this have on your business?
The amount of plastic kits has increased so much since I first started and that has been fantastic from a business point of view. There are downsides of course, such as trying to keep so many different products in stock and finding space for them all. I have pretty much stopped selling any large monsters, vehicles and flyers due to lack of space and they are also not very profitable. Smaller kits are much easier to store and I have plenty of room for many more releases.

Do you run Bitzbox alone, or are there others who help?
The business is owned and run by myself mostly. When the company was first started it was a partnership between myself and my best friend who I also ran a web development business with. After about 3-4 years he left to do his own thing, but we are still great friends. I have a volunteer who does a few hours each week. My girlfriend works at a school so she doesn’t work during school holidays and usually ends up giving me a hand with work. My social media is mainly handled by my friend Wayne who also films battle reports for our YouTube channel. Running Bitzbox is my 9-5 job so with the amount of orders and stock that requires cutting off sprues each week I just about manage to fit all the required tasks in but as we continue to grow I will certainly be looking into hiring more helpers.

Another model from Craig's personal collection

Got any tips you’d like to share?
In regards to modelling and painting almost everything I’ve learned recently has just been from blogs and YouTube tutorials. It’s amazing how much we can learn online these days. I don’t consider myself an amazing painter but I like to think my quality is just above tabletop standard. When it comes to running a business you just have to have patience. I wasn’t taking any money from Bitzbox for the first 2-3 years and was lucky to be in a position that I didn’t need to rely on it’s income. It usually takes a while to really get up and running but there’s so many great online communities in this hobby that it’s not too difficult to start getting your name out there. Also when you work for yourself I think it’s best to get into a routine so you don’t start getting lazy or end up putting things off.

Many games companies are based in Nottingham. Are you in that neck of the woods? Does your location confer any benefits or leave you at any disadvantage?
Bitzbox is based in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk so we’re a good few hours away from Nottingham. The wargaming scene around here is quite large though and I’ve met loads of wargamers through the local game stores. It’s certainly a benefit having so many local wargamers as many of them have been customers at one time or another.

Do you go to conventions?
I have never been to any conventions. I’ve had plenty of invites to set up stalls but I don’t think it’s that feasible for my type of business. If I do go to one in the future it will just be as a regular Joe.

Craig's Harlequin Wraithknight

How did you first get into the miniature war-gaming hobby?
I first got into the hobby when I was about 10. One of my friends from school was into 40K and he got me into it. He had Orks, Dark Eldar and Tyranids and we used to play games with his miniatures to begin with. I remember my dad getting me the Warhammer 5th edition box set (with Lizardmen and Bretonnians) for Christmas and then for my birthday a couple of months later he bought me my first 40K models, the 7 man metal Chaos Space Marine squad and 5 Chaos Terminators. I then got other models such as Khorne Berzerkers, Kharn and Abaddon for that army. My cousin also got into the hobby at the time and had a really nice Dark Eldar army. Over the next few years several of my friends would get into the hobby and we had loads of games of 3rd edition 40K in my garage.

Do you still pursue gaming and modelling as a hobby today?
Absolutely. I love the painting and converting aspect of the hobby. I do try to game when I can too. I have several 40K armies. My largest is my Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Daemons. I also have Space Marines, Orks, Tyranids and Eldar. And I play a little bit of Malifaux and am now getting into the Horus Heresy stuff too.

Imperial Knight Warden from Craig's collection

It sounds like you're more into 40K than Warhammer Fantasy Battle. What other sci-fi and fantasy inspires you?
Weirdly I love fantasy universes more than sci-fi on the whole but in regards to wargaming about 95% of it is 40K. I never really got into Warhammer Fantasy much but have started playing Age of Sigmar. I’ve always been a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien and love The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. I’m also a big fan of Game of Thrones. I do love sci-fi too. I love Aliens and the original Star Wars trilogy plus many others. Both genres are great but I think I prefer to see a good sword fight. Star Wars is great at offering that in a sci-fi setting which is why I love the films so much. I don’t play video games as much as I used to when I was younger. I tend to lean towards games like the Final Fantasy series, Skyrim, GTA V and Fallout 4 these days. I like games I can sink hours into.

A video game inspired Ork Meganob?

Interesting point about Star Wars being a fantasy film in a science fiction setting. Which scene from the Star Wars series would you say is your favourite or most memorable?
For me the moment that stands out the most in the Star Wars saga is at the end of Return of The Jedi when Vader kills Emperor Palpatine. Vader was a great villain throughout the whole trilogy but during that scene we start to see a side of him that shows remorse and although "he’s more machine now than man" and he’s fallen to the dark side, in the end it’s his human emotions that win. Even with his helmet on you can sense the pain Vader feels from seeing Luke on the verge of death from the hands of Palpatine.

Just a few days now until the release of the next instalment. The excitement is mounting. But talking of the future, what would you say it holds for you? What plans do you have?
My house came with a large extension that was unfinshed that I always planned to use for the business. This is now being worked on and I hope to have the renovations done by the new year. This will see me being able to increase storage space for Bitzbox as well as be a really cool gaming area (hopefully). I want to eventually hire some helpers so we can stock loads more and quicker too. Our YouTube channel has really grown over the last year also and we’re going to be working even harder to bring more bat reps and other videos over the next few months as we really enjoy making them. Next September will also mark 10 years of Bitzbox so something very special will be happening then I’m sure.

Craig, thank you for taking time out to speak to me, much appreciated. Craig's site, Bitzbox, can be found here.

Guns and skulls

It has just occurred to me that if someone put a gun to your head and demanded, on pain of having your living room redecorated with brains, that you summarise the entire Warhammer 40,000 universe in just a few words, replying 'guns and skulls' might just see you survive.

Ignoring the fact that if you weren't in your living room at the time it would be hugely inconvenient for the gunman, the thought does add a little extra relevance to the models I want to share today.

I've been struggling to work on my Arbites squad of late, nothing new there, so I figured, in the meantime, I'd present some more stuff from my city project. These are basically models from the WH40K universe that I find interesting, that aren't affiliated with any particular army, and that it wouldn't be too weird to see on or around the streets of an Imperial hive city - in this case Kruenta Karoliina Arx Rotunda.

For no logical reason I've chosen to start with the skulls. Servo-skulls. These ones include some of the Forge World models, various Games Workshop kits and the tracked one from the Space Hulk boxed game.

The automated gun platforms have a similarly mixed heritage. The one on the left is from Forge World, but the one on the right comes from two different places. Its track unit is taken from an out-of-production character from Micro Art Studio's Iron Brotherhood range, while the magnetised turret was created from the weapon arm of an old Games Workshop metal dreadnought.

There was a little chopping and glueing involved with that mobile platform, but essentially none of these models took very long to construct. Which is a good thing when you see how laboriously slow I am at getting anything done.

And if you'd like to see just how laboriously slow I am at getting anything done you can review the meagre entirety of my city project to date by clicking here.

Judgement day

There's cause for celebration in my house today. Or at least in the corner of my house where I play with tiny bits of plastic. It's because I've finally finished building the first five of my 'Judge Dredd' style Arbites Enforcers. It's been a long slog, but generally I've enjoyed working on this project. If, for some reason you are remotely interested you can find all the earlier stages here. Although, to be fair, there's still plenty more work to be done until it's completely finished. I guess the reality is I'm only about half way through, but hush now child, let's not ruin the moment.

'Judge Dredd' style Arbites Enforcers. Not what I'd call instant justice

Also, if you've been following any of this, or if you just clicked on the link above, you may be wondering what happened to the other two troopers. 

In my last related entry I mentioned some other weapons that I was going to have to build from scratch. Here's a photo showing the tiny amount of progress I've made since then. If you couldn't before, you should now be able to tell what it's all going to be.

That's right, it's more tiny bits of plastic

Once I've finished these last two guys, then I've only got to build that bike I promised (way back here). Just a few arms and a simple little bike standing between me and the painting stage. Or maybe two bikes. Shall we say two? Okay, two.

The Giant Robo Alphabot, part three

I mentioned in an earlier post that when I originally made the list of entries for my robot alphabet I wanted them all to be robotic vehicles with some sort of transport capacity - what are often referred to as walkers. It proved too tricky to find decent entries for every letter so I had to open up the criteria to include large robots as well. But even this left me with a few entries that didn't quite conform. By the time I had the final list of robots for inclusion I was no longer completely sure what the unifying factor was. 

I was thinking about this earlier and I realised that all the robots or robot-like vehicles have at least one of these two features:

• The ability to carry a person or people

• Advanced offensive capabilities

That shouldn't have surprised me as I'm a big fan of the heavy-duty military aesthetic. I've noticed it runs through a significant proportion of my model making, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it elsewhere on this blog. So, with that said, here are two more robots from my alphabet which exemplify the above criteria and really embody that military aesthetic.